Hello, it’s been a while, so I finally have a new article! Today, I’m exploring a language problem that is tricky to navigate: computer language assistants giving inaccurate advice. That is, when you have autocorrect or grammar assistant programs that flag things either unnecessarily or incorrectly.

I’ve compiled a short list of what I find to be the most common examples to help you avoid problems with this, so you can use language software tips more effectively.

What’s wrong with language assistant software?

Spellcheck and grammar assistants can be very handy, and I often use them for additional, final proof-reading checks – but I’m very careful about which corrections I accept. For example, this article is about 1,500 words long; I gave it one edit myself and ran it through Grammarly to receive 47 suggestions. Of these, 20 were actually specified “corrections”, and the others just language tips, which are of little interest to me. Of the 20 corrections, I found 5 useful, but only 1 was an objective error (a missing word). The remaining “corrections” were suggestions for commas or for verb or preposition changes. Considering I accepted 4 out of 19 of these, you can see the suggestions weren’t really “correct” for me.

This is about typical with what I find for my documents, though I am a professional writer and editor, so I’d imagine for others there may be a higher rate of useful corrections. If you can tell which ones to accept.

Every extra error I can identify is invaluable, but to get those corrections it’s essential that I’m able to identify how 75% of the suggestions aren’t appropriate. Mostly, the suggestions aren’t wrong, but are just unnecessary, and may slightly change my meaning or personal style. In the worst cases, they could actually introduce errors.

The problem is that language is an ever-changing and flexible thing, as we often discuss on here, whilst computer programs follow strict rules. It’s dangerous to rely on these too much, as they operate on a basis that all writing should be the same – that it should follow a particular, “correct” form. In its most extreme, this can strip writing of its intended effect or meaning.

Mostly, though, this is more of a sentence-level issue, where you have to consider whether or not the computer program’s tweaks are relevant – and consistent. To help keep you vigilant about the suggestions, here are 7 things that I notice often come up.

 1. Commas

By far the most common suggestion I get from computer language assistants is to add or remove commas. This is usually based on specific conjunction rules, pointing to situations where you should always or never have a comma alongside a conjunction. I disagree with using commas this way, as their particular use depends on how we can best present the information of any given sentence (as is true of all these points, actually).

For reference, I have a whole series of articles on commas, which you can find curated here. There is a running theme throughout that a comma’s main purpose is to aid with clarity. Software can’t necessarily decide that for you; sometimes, a reliance on specific structures will mean “correct” comma placement helps, but in most cases I would assess the accuracy of your commas based on your own intended meanings.

2. Prepositions

As with commas, computer software tends to try and fit preposition use into rigid rules, in this case based on expected conjugations. Anyone who has studied English will know, however, that the patterns for preposition use (and by association also particles from phrasal verbs) are terribly complex and often very specific.

Mostly, this is seen with suggestions that you change a preposition to a more appropriate one, or remove it. I frequently get told to correct “look on” to “look at”. This is a minor shift, but it’s telling that the software assumes “at” is always the most appropriate preposition for “look”. The problem with a correction like this is that “look at” may almost always be technically “correct” here, it’s not necessarily conveying the exact connection I want.

I also find these programs like to simplify longer or combined prepositions, such as changing “onto” to “on” or “into” to “in”, again stripping some nuance. Words such as “onto” and “into” exist to provide specific detail, which the computer, concerned only with correctness, does not necessarily appreciate.

3. Isolated Verb Conjugation

Certain structures seem to confuse computer software’s understanding of intended verb uses, and you may see suggestions for changing tenses or subject conjugation that don’t make sense in the wider context. One that I often encounter is where the program expects a particular type of structure to be associated with rules, and suggests a present tense verb, no matter what tense the rest of the document is in. This is more likely to occur where you have shorter, isolated sentences.

On the other hand, correction software can also get confused about subject conjugation when dealing with lists or longer sentences that separate the subject from the verb. Be particularly careful where you have noun phrases for subjects, and especially where you have multiple noun phrases, as this can make it hard to keep track of plurals. This is an area that can be tricky when writing and editing your own work, and computer programs aren’t necessarily any better at it than us!

4. Emphatic and Stylised Language

In general, autocorrect software is always looking to make your language more efficient and simpler, assuming simple is clearest. Whilst there is some merit in this as a starting point for editing, if followed too strictly it can restructure information you want presented in a specific way, and it may affect tone or emphasis.

Modern language use has gone towards an attitude that plain, simple language is best, but there is a time and place for varying from this. Computers cannot decide what those times and places are, so will simply tell you, for example, to remove extra adverbs or shorten long sentences.

You’ll see this in many different ways, but one of the most common is when language assistants suggest removing emphatic adverbs such as “still”, “just”, “really” and “very”. Sometimes these will be filler words that we can do without and sometimes they can completely change the emphasis of a sentence. Be careful to decide for yourself whether they are needed.

5. Dialogue Tags & Punctuation Styles

Computer language assistants sometimes make completely incorrect suggestions for specific bits of punctuation, such as dialogue tags (i.e. when using quote marks). A common example I find is when dealing with interruptions in dialogue, or listed items using quotes (in both cases, not using the expected full sentences enclosed by quotation marks). This is a matter of style which should be consistent within one document but may not easily be called correct or incorrect in general. For example:

• “I might interrupt some dialogue” – using dashes – “like this.”
• “Or you could also show an interruption,” with commas, “like this.”

Computer programs won’t necessarily see what you’re going for here, and can make some very strange suggestions, either to end or combine sentences or use different styles (such as replacing commas with dashes or vice versa).

It’s important in these cases to be aware of your style choices and stick to them.

6. Sentence Fragments & Adaptive Rules

There are times in writing where we reject typical rules to use grammatically incomplete sentences, often because they break rules, drawing attention to themselves. This is always going to depend on specific circumstances and personal nuance, and as such is always going to prove difficult for computers to master. I feel the software is actually getting better at appreciating this, and doesn’t always flag fragments, but for the most part if you venture from the rules, you will get warnings.

With sentence fragments in particular, this could lead to a variety of suggested solutions, including punctuation, verb, noun or preposition tweaks – all of which may detract from or completely change the intended meaning. Beware!

7. Vocabulary

Lastly, but most obviously, computer programs sometimes try to offer “better” words to improve your writing. This is not to be confused with correcting words, where you have a mistaken meaning, but is again a symptom of the rule-based system where certain types of language are considered to be clearer or more appropriate than others. Where software offers you words with similar meaning, I’d tread very carefully over exactly why it wants you to make a change. It may just be a case of the program trying to make language fit expected patterns. As with all the cases above, it can also mistake your intended meaning and try to change the sentence to fit its own ideas. Grammarly once told me to change “her behind” to “her hind legs”, which would’ve taken things in a very unusual direction.

The only good reason I can think of for automated synonym suggestions is where you might’ve used a particularly obscure or complex word that might be clearer simplified, but this is a personal choice to make that can depend on the context.

That’s my list for now, which I hope helps highlight areas for caution with computer language assistants. The software is useful and is definitely improving, but I do encourage you to keep questioning it, and there are plenty of other areas for caution I’m sure you’ve all encountered. Feel free to share your own experiences in the comments!

If you want to say something with fewer words in English, it’s often possible to choose more specific vocabulary. When it comes to choosing your verbs, this can impact entire phrases.

Today, I’m looking at a common issue in my fiction editing work, where we have verbs that may be accompanied by information like adverbs, prepositional phrases and even object phrases that do not add any additional detail. These can be easily trimmed if you’re working to a word count, or just want to be more efficient in your language use!

How Verbs Attract Extra Words

This can seem like a picky point, but we often see or hear verbs accompanied by information that essentially repeats something already conveyed by the action. For example, ‘shout loudly’ does not tell more than ‘shout’, as a shout is, by definition, loud. We often add such words quite instinctively, I suspect because we intend to express a specific detail without stopping to think about how we’ve already successfully expressed it. Though tricky to tackle when speaking, we can certainly look out for this when editing our writing!

The rich range of vocabulary in English gives us all sorts of nuanced choices for words – but this isn’t necessarily an advanced topic. Sometimes it is just a case of better understanding or paying attention to what verbs really mean. Through this consideration, we can shorten many verb phrases.

I’ve broken this down into three groups of example verbs that we can look out for to trim extra words: verbs which tell us the manner of what is done, verbs which tell us the direction of what is done and verbs which can tell us what is being used (i.e. implied objects). In all these cases, the extra details shown below aren’t incorrect as such, but can draw unwanted attention the verb and phrasing, which might distract your reader or listener by making them question if the additional detail is important. So, unless you want to be specifically emphatic, trimming these unnecessary words can help keep your language clean and clear.

Verbs Describing Manner

When choosing your verbs (as with all vocab!), there are typically simpler/general options and more specific, descriptive options. When you modify a general verb with an adverb, it’s often possible to instead use a different verb.

For example:

• run fast -> sprint
• talk quietly -> whisper
• liked a lot -> adored

While general verbs and adverbs have their own uses, what’s useful to recognise here is that more specific verbs are less likely to need such descriptors. If you already have a verb that describes a certain manner of action, extra description is not necessary.

For example:

• sprint [quickly]
• whisper [quietly]
• adored [a lot]

By definition, a sprint is fast, a whisper is quiet, and adoration is already extreme, so we don’t need these describing words. You can add such descriptors for emphasis, but it’s best to be aware of when and why you are doing this.

Verbs Describing Directions

Similarly, certain action verbs can by their nature express a directional aspect, making prepositions and prepositional phrases unnecessary. Such verbs might look like phrasal verbs, and fall into common usage, but they’re often just collocations. To look out for verbs that express directions, consider if the action would be unclear without a preposition.

For example:

• rise up
• crouch down
• climb up
• shout out
• dive under

This is not quite as simple as the describing verbs above, as the necessity for prepositions depends on how we’re connecting to a sentence, but without context, of all the verbs above except dive would give us the same information without the preposition. Rise must always go up and crouch down, and a shout always goes out (baring the artistic inward shout of thinking!). Without a specific context, climb generally means up, though we can also climb down. Dive, however, does not suggest a specific direction on its own – while it typically implies down, a dive can also go forward, sideways or up, or in this example under something.

Without objects and obstacles, verbs suggesting a direction can easily be simplified without prepositions. Unless you want to describe such actions in relation to something, e.g. to crouch under a table, we can mostly understand the directions of many verbs on their own.

Note, these extra prepositions don’t just apply to physical directions – more abstract verbs also can work on their own without prepositions, such as ‘add in/on’ = ‘add’.

Verbs Implying An Object

Lastly, there are verbs which by their nature tell us what is used to complete an action. People often add an object or indirect object to such verbs where it is unnecessary. This can be a trickier point to look out, but mostly I find these relate to actions that use body parts, perhaps because the verbs don’t obviously describing a body part, but typically don’t need the extra detail. For example:

• nod his head
• blink her eyes
• kick with his foot
• wave her hand
• shrug his shoulders

Unless there is something surprising or important about the object being used with such verbs, again it can sound strange or long-winded to add them. Again while this may sound picky, consider if you were to say ‘He hammered with a hammer.’ or ‘She spoke with her mouth.’ – someone who’s really paying attention could be distracted by such phrasing. Such verbs only need objects when the action is being specifically directed towards something other than the general meaning.

• She waved a flag.
• He kicked with the toe of his foot.
• She shrugged one shoulder.

Otherwise, I’d suggest keeping those verbs clean!

As I always say, this all depends on context and there are no absolutes in language, but I hope this gives some starting points for thinking about we can be more efficient in our phrasing of verbs, cutting out unnecessary words for a crisper, clearer meaning. And if you can think of other similar examples, feel free to share them in the comments below!

I often discuss breaking down sentence structure and word order to demonstrate how understanding sentence components helps provide flexibility with structure. You can use the full word order guide to help with this here.

Today, though, I’d like to discuss cases when it makes sense to choose a particular order based on a logical flow of information, where standard word order is maybe not the best choice, or reordering sentences could impact your intended meaning. This is not a question of grammar, but effective communication, and I’ll mostly focus on narrative timing to demonstrate this.

When “Correct” Sentence Structure is Problematic

A common issue I encounter in editing books is where something is described followed by information that would have been more effective coming first. This can be in descriptions of people and objects or the order of actions. It can also occur on a structural level, in paragraphs of chapters, but I’m going to be focusing on the sentence level here.

There are countless ways this can occur and it will always depend on the context (as does everything!), but most simply I see this as an issue where framing details come after the information they should frame. For example:

• There was an armchair in his living room, in his home, which was a castle.

There’s nothing essentially wrong with this sentence, except that we’re describing things in reverse order, from small to big, instead of setting the scene before placing things in it. The impact here is that it gives a rather scattered impression, with the reader having to reassess what they are seeing as they go (this works well in humour, but less effectively if you want to build a clear impression).

The key is to pay attention to what information you’d like someone to understand first to set a scene, before placing finer details in it. How important this is depends on what you are describing – essentially I’d warn that if there is anything a reader might find surprising, and you don’t want it to be a surprising twist (such as that castle detail), put it sooner.

In describing actions, the nuances of this can be more subtle. Particularly with shorter sentences, we don’t always need things to be in a simple linear order, as is clear by the fact that regular word order typically puts time phrases in a later position:

• She ate a cake after coming home.

It becomes more of an issue with longer sentences. When actions are described in detail before something else that already happened, it can create a narrative that feels like it’s jumping around. For example:

• He took the teabag out after brewing it for five minutes, once the kettle had boiled.

This sentence essentially tells us the events in reverse. It is grammatically correct and fairly clear, so I wouldn’t necessarily stop and say we must change it, but you can decide for yourself if a more logical sequence, presenting the action in the order that it happens, creates a better flow:

• Once the kettle had boiled, he brewed the tea for five minutes and took the teabag out.

This is a fairly innocuous example though. It matters more when you have details that could jar a reader out of the moment – again, if something might surprise them or might have helped establish the current scene. With events out of order, the timing itself may also become confusing:

• Sheila booked herself a cruise in the Pacific and enjoyed three months in the sun, away from everything, before settling down in a nice cottage in the countryside, after she retired.

Hopefully it’s clear here why the “after she retired” detail feels out of place at the end, as a detail that is tagged on, when in fact it is the detail that enables everything else. On its own, with this order, this sentence isn’t fully clear – did she retire before the cruise, or between the cruise and settling down in the cottage?

Again, I’d recommend presenting longer sentences in the order that events happen, so we can follow the action logically. And this is especially true, and apparent, when we include dialogue. With dialogue, we are creating a moment for the reader to experience, and if something is quoted followed by an action that preceded it, that moment is broken. For example:

• “Can I have some tea?” Winona asked, after she came into the room.

This is a backwards way of presenting the action as we’re already hearing the dialogue, picturing her saying it, only to then be shown her entering the room, which has already happened. If you want a reader to clearly picture a scene, it helps to keep things in order.

This doesn’t just apply to issues of clarity, though – mixing up the sequence of your sentences can affect tension, emphasis and other areas. There are reasons that we might specifically want to frame things differently (more on that below), but without one of those reasons, I’d suggest making things clearest for the reader by presenting actions in a logical order.

How to Keep Things Logical

There are two key tricks I’d look out for here in structuring your sentences to follow a logical/linear progression:

• Present details in a deliberate order, typically starting with the bigger picture and anything surprising or notable before getting into finer details.
• Present actions in the order that they occur, avoiding telling us about something that happened after we’ve already seen an action that followed it.

Two words you can look out for when considering the sequence of actions are “after” and “before” (and any similar phrases). For the most part, it makes sense to front-load adverbials that start with “after” (as these are events that came first) and to have adverbials that start with “before” later (as these are events that follow). The examples below illustrate this:

• After getting his car, he drove to the market. NOT He drove to the market after getting in his car.
• She bought the cheesecake in the market before she ate it all. NOT Before she ate it all, she bought the cheesecake in the market.

Again, though, there’s nothing necessarily wrong with these sentences on their own, but it’s a good practice to follow/be aware of for the times when it will matter.

When to Disregard Logical Order

As I said above, there are plenty of reasons we might not want to stick to a logical order. English sentence structure is, after all, flexible, and sentences can make sense in various orders. This is another case though where I would say whatever order you present your information, you should be aware of it, and have a reason for your sentence structure choices. This equally applies to both deviating from standard word order, where the time usually comes later (e.g. because we want to show a preceding event first), and in sticking to standard word order (e.g. because it is a short sentence or the sequence of events itself isn’t important/likely to cause confusion).

When we don’t use a linear order for presenting details or timed events, it’s usually because that information is less important and the order won’t affect understanding, or it’s because information presented out of sequence is more notable. Standard sentence order places time adverbials later in the sentence, which puts the emphasis on the active verb/subject, rather than the sequence of events itself. For example:

• She passed her driving test after only five lessons. (This puts more emphasis on the result, passing.)

Otherwise, giving us descriptive details or narrative sequences that don’t follow the expected, logical order, can also be good for deliberately adding emphasis or creating a surprise, which might be useful in creating either humour or tension. As with the castle example we started with, this can be a hallmark of absurdist humour:

• She rode to work instead of taking her car, but couldn’t find anywhere to stable her camel.

This sentence deliberately holds back the crucial detail, that she rode on a camel, to deliver it as a surprise. But if you merely wanted to paint a picture, where the point is anything but providing a surprise, it makes more sense to be clear:

• She rode her camel to work instead of her car, but the stables were full.

If in doubt, and you just want to be clear, consider what the most logical order is for a reader to receive the information you’re presenting, and how learning things in a different order will affect their understanding or reaction.

In today’s new article I’m taking a look at the difference between ‘all right’ and ‘alright’, something which has come up a few times for me in my editing work and a point I’ve considered probably more than I should have in my own writing. It’s possible (and somewhat demonstratively correct) to reject ‘alright’ as incorrect outright, but I personally hold this instead as a good example of how and why the English language changes over time.

First, though, a quick definition: ‘all right’ as a phrase essentially means fine, okay, in good order, and can be used as an adjective, adverb or general interjection/intensifier. It’s taken on a rather nuanced nature, making it quite flexible – and it’s one of those expressions that can, depending on our context and understanding of the speaker, have an opposite application (like ‘fine’; with the right intonation it could mean ‘excellent’ or ‘disappointing’!).

Most likely because it’s acquired such a colloquial usage, however, the words have been compounded and a new spelling has emerged. 

Is it ‘all right’ or ‘alright’?

The simple answer to this question, to ensure you’re always correct, would be to always write ‘all right’. Dictionaries generally still have this phrase listed primarily as ‘all right’, and do not necessarily include ‘alright’ at all, and you will never be wrong to write it this way.

However, ‘alright’ has emerged as a variant spelling that encompasses the phrasal use of this expression in one word, and I would say it’s correct/acceptable to use ‘alright’ as long it’s being used for this meaning, i.e. as fine, okay etc.

I actually use ‘alright’ myself to convey this colloquial phrasing, as opposed to ‘all right’, spelt out, so to differentiate between the colloquial/descriptive use and a structure that more specifically refers to grouped nouns with a quality of ‘rightness’ – i.e. when we wish to say ‘everything in this group is correct’ (or alternatively, rightward leaning/directional). Having two separate spellings used consistently here can actually aid clarity, for example in an interpretation of these sentences:

• The students were all right. (They each had the correct answers/understanding.)
• The students were alright. (They were okay.)

Mostly, such sentences should be clear depending on the context anyway, but in the rare circumstances when these separate definitions might make the difference, I think it’s a difference worth having.

However, note that in the above examples, ‘alright’ would actually be incorrect in the meaning of the first sentence, whereas ‘all right’ could work for either, so, as I’ve said above, if want to be safe, you can only use ‘all right’ and it will always be correct.

This is a great example of language adapting, though, and popular usage giving us an alternative; a little tweak that is widely accepted can gradually help demonstrate the difference between a technical structure and a colloquial phrase.

It’s interesting to me because it seems obvious and natural to use ‘alright’ in this way, but actually it’s quite a modern style. Google’s Ngram viewer demonstrates usage of ‘alright’ having only gradually been adopted in the past two decades. So, it’s something that has emerged within my lifetime. If you look at that graph, though, it’s undeniably going up, and ‘alright’ is now in use almost half as much as ‘all right’, which is relatively in decline.

The bottom line here for me is that if someone wants to use ‘alright’, there’s no reason they shouldn’t, as long as it is applied for this specific meaning. Likewise, anyone would be free to always use ‘all right’. It would be really incorrect, though, to suggest that you must use one or the other, as we can plainly see that people are already using both alternatives, and while the dictionary might still favour ‘all right’, the English-speaking world is slowly adopting ‘alright’ too.

I felt like it was time for a look at some vocabulary for once, so today I’m sharing some thoughts on how to develop and use an advanced vocabulary, from a chapter originally published in Advanced Writing Skills (which celebrated some big milestones last month!).

Widening your vocabulary is essential to improve in any language skill. The more words you know, the more subjects you can discuss with greater accuracy. Advanced vocabulary helps you to be more specific. Wider understanding of words helps you to read more and to understand people from different regions or cultures. However, the more words you learn, the more caution you need when using them.

Let’s have a look at why, and what to do about it…

A wide vocabulary can harm your writing if you use words inappropriately or inaccurately. This may happen when you use a word your reader does not understand or if you use a word outside its correct context. It can also happen when you use language that is more complex than is necessary, negatively affecting the reading experience. Your writing’s main job is to communicate effectively, and difficult or uncommon vocabulary can prevent that.

Using Advanced Words in English

 Consider the following two sentences:

• Arthur sat on a wooden bench and quietly drank some milk.
• Arthur parked his rear on a timber bench and tacitly consumed a pasteurised beverage.

The second sentence might seem impressive if you want to demonstrate how many different words you know, but it does not create a clear picture. It does not communicate its main idea effectively.

Using advanced vocabulary requires two levels of understanding. First, you must learn the word’s meaning. Second, you must learn when it should be used. Properly understood, advanced vocabulary should be applied strategically for a particular effect. Considering our example again, we could use one advanced word at a time, for different purposes:

• Arthur sat on a wooden bench and tacitly drank some milk. (emphasising his shyness with an advanced word that may also hint at his intelligence)
• Arthur sat on a wooden bench and quietly drank some pasteurised milk (focusing on the technical aspect of the drink, perhaps demonstrating a health-conscious character, or a detail-focused writer)
• Arthur parked his rear on a bench and drink some milk. (using a colloquial expression to give the action a very particular tone, in this case suggesting an irreverent narrator)

The notes in brackets may seem like an extreme interpretation, but this is the level of consideration that makes your use of advanced vocabulary effective. Your particular purpose is likely to depend on the wider context. In the form of a narrative, such considerations may be used to reflect the personality of the central character:

• Arthur, a scientist who spent more time with books than people, perched on the bench and sipped what he considered to be a very tasty beverage.

This sentence conveys more than the idea of our simple scene. Here, we are communicating Arthur’s personality through a pompous narrative style. What if we wanted to give him a different tone?

• Arthur plonked himself on the bench and downed his milk.

This example takes a jump from advanced vocabulary to informal, regional vocabulary. Such a vocabulary choice has a big impact on tone.

In non-fiction writing, reflecting such attitudes and tones is far less common, making it safer to stick to simpler vocabulary choices. However, advanced vocabulary is common when specific vocabulary is necessary or expected, and certain subjects require specialist language for discussion. Academic, medical, and business terms, for example, often represent ideas which do not have a simpler alternative; words which should be commonly understood when read by a like-minded audience.

But as a guiding rule, keep in mind the concept of simplicity. Choose the most common word, or (generally) the shorter word, unless you have a good reason not to. Deciding on a good reason for using advanced vocabulary is where your personal understanding of language becomes very important. Essentially, the only reason for using advanced vocabulary is that the specific function of a word is necessary to convey a specific point. If not, choose the word most likely to be understood.

It is likely that the first words you learnt in English will be the words you continue to use most. And that’s a good thing.

This month I’m proud to announce Advanced Writing Skills for Students of English has become my third book to pass 10,000 global sales!

It’s an especially important milestone for me and English Lessons Brighton for a few reasons, not least because the book also had its 5th anniversary a couple of months ago (not far off the website itself’s 10th anniversary).

So here’s an article going back over the book’s journey:

Why Advanced Writing Skills was an important book for me

Advanced Writing Skills for Students of English was my first non-fiction book to cover style and matters of personal opinion as opposed to teaching more regimented grammar rules. That made it more personal than my other ELT books, as here I was really delving more into my own personal experience as a writer and editor, as well as a teacher. The lessons I put into Advanced Writing Skills were therefore more unique to me, and unlikely to be recreated quite the same way elsewhere.

My aim with this book was to go beyond the basics of English to help foreign learners develop their skills in ways that might actually surpass the basic knowledge of many native English speakers. I intended to do this by teaching a flexible, considerate approach to writing, through a book which values an understanding of context and the evolution of language. One of the key aspects of this was to explore the differences between essential rules that clarify understanding and patterns that merely provide consistency – as well as some considerations for where these crossover.

At the time of releasing this book, I was very confident in selling grammar guides, but less sure how a book of this nature would do. But it proved popular from the very start – in fact it was labelled as a #1 New Release on Amazon (see the image below!) and later went on to become a bestseller in multiple categories. 

I spent countless hours trying to get reviews for my Word Order and English Tenses books (mostly without success), and barely spent any time looking for reviews for Advanced Writing Skills. Once it was out, people started buying it straight away, and they left reviews without being asked – very soon, it was my most positively rated book.

5 Years of Advanced Writing Skills

I didn’t manage to celebrate this book’s fifth anniversary earlier partly because I was distracted by another anniversary – in May I looked back on five years of my Ordshaw fiction universe. I was shocked to discover, however, that I released my novel Under Ordshaw only a week before Advanced Writing Skills. I’m not sure what I was thinking at the time – but I do recall going on holiday shortly afterwards. It was when I was coming through the airport after a return flight that I checked my Advanced Writing Skills sales and discovered the book had turned a profit in just under four weeks.

It was, and still is, my fastest book to become profitable.

But there was more to come: within a few months of the book’s release, I was contacted by a professor at Antwerp University asking if they could use my book as part of a core text on a linguistics course. Which of course I was delighted for, though I’ve no idea how the course then went.

Since then, Advanced Writing Skills has been one of my most consistently successful books, though my marketing efforts have become increasingly less effective in recent years. For it to hit a 10,000 sale milestone now is a great encouragement, as things have slowed down so much for the books – and such a huge number makes me wonder how far and in what contexts the book has spread. It’s rare that I learn exactly where my books have ended up, especially as I see bulk purchases that I assume come from courses and book clubs, but the mail I’ve received has really touched me – from teachers passing copies on to students, to people buying books for friends who live in less-accessible countries.

I’m saddened somewhat that I can’t keep this website as active as it once was, or keep producing books at the rate I previously did, but I’m immeasurably proud that Advanced Writing Skills for Students of English has come this far, and is continuing to sell even as I’m struggling to keep marketing it. And while I’ll keep doing what I can here, there’s something about hitting five years and 10,000 sales that makes it feel that much more complete.

It’s a huge achievement and I have all of you, my readers, to thank for taking it this far. So thank you for joining me on this journey, and I hope the book has helped you!

“For ever after” is a phrase I found curious recently, as it highlights some interesting points about how English works as a flexible, evolving language.

The phrase can be written in two different ways, changing the meanings of the words, with no real agreement on the “correct” form. Both forms roughly mean the same thing, and as such the way people say, write or understand this phrase is likely based on a chosen style, not a difference in intention or a logically assessed reasoning.

So, let’s explore the differences, the shifts in popularity and what that means for the way we look at such inconsistencies in English.

First up, what does the phrase mean? “For ever after” is an adverbial phrase (often regarded as an idiom) that essentially means “for all time from this point on”. It’s similar to the classic fairy tale ending “happily ever after”, or the word “forevermore”.

For example:

• They got married and lived together for ever after.
• The countries signed a treaty and were at peace forever after.

How should we write “for ever after”?

Let’s break down the two ways “for ever after” can be written. I’ve used the form that clearly separates the words so far, but this is not the one I’m most familiar with; I would typically write “forever after” myself, which is why I wanted to look into the phrase in more detail. We can essentially see this as using one of two different adverbials:

• for [ever after]
• [forever] after

As in “happily ever after”, “ever after” is an idiomatic phrase meaning “everything from this point on”; the first option makes sense in the regard “for the duration of everything from this point on”. There’s also a case to be made, somewhat loosely, that we could even write “everafter”, for a third option, “for everafter”, but that is not common or really accepted. Over time it might become more popular if “ever after” develops into a true compound word.

On the other hand, “forever after” uses the adverb “forever” to mean “all time”, in the same regard, “all the time after this point”. However, I’m picking at this a bit to show some sort of difference – it’s hard to actually form a definition for either form that wouldn’t work for the other. So we have different component words with slightly different meanings, but result in basically the same outcome.

What is the most common way to say “for ever after”?

While we can already fairly say either option is acceptable, what ultimately dictates “correct” English (that being the most easily accepted or understood) is popular use. Logically, I think there’s a strong case that “for ever after” makes most sense as it applies the idiomatic phrasing. Most likely the phrase will be used to affect that kind of idiomatic expression. However, “forever after” feels more right to me personally, mostly as it emphasises that longevity. Or maybe just because it looks neater to have two words instead on one. Either way, it’s perfectly acceptable to go on gut feeling with this, or with whatever you were first taught, or like the look of, and I think that says quite a lot about how the English language often works. No doubt people would argue for one form over another, but there’s no way to definitively settle on a superior, meaning we must accept both.

What we can now do, though, is look at the statistics of usage for more insights. One of the tools I use to analyse popular phrasing is Google’s Ngram Viewer, which analyses a huge database of writing from (currently) 1800–2019. You can enter phrases and compare how their popularity has changed. Here are the results for the three different forms of the phrase.

From this data, you can see that “forever after” has held a fairly common amount of usage, overtaking “for ever after” in 1888 and establishing itself as the more popular phrasing for the next 130 years. However, throughout the 19th century “for ever after” was much more popular, and its usage apparently dramatically declined. We can draw a few conclusions from this but the most obvious would seem to be that “for ever after” was probably used in a specific type of writing, which gradually faded – probably the sort of fairy tales and romances that first popularised “happily ever after” endings. With the decline of such books, the phrase itself was used less, while it would seem that the “forever after” style, which has remained fairly consistent, was less reliant on such trends. Perhaps “forever after” has longer been a staple in common usage, with “for ever after” more tied to a particular type of writing.

That’s a bit of speculation on my behalf but hopefully serves as an example of the sort of detail we can go into when considering the “correct” way to word something – and why it’s not necessarily something that depends on meaning or language logic!

I hope you found this interesting. Let me know your thoughts, and of course feel free to explore other similar examples in the comments!

A problem many native English writers and foreign English learners have in common is combining independent clauses without the appropriate punctuation or conjunctions, often seen with what we call comma splices.

I thought this would be an interesting topic to cover, especially as I realised it’s not already in my Advanced Writing Skills book (and it’s a nice follow up to my recent look at serial commas!). So, I’m going to briefly explain what comma splices are, why (and how) they should be avoided and why they can sometimes be acceptable.

What is a Comma Splice?

Simply put, a comma splice is when you have a comma combining independent clauses, where you would otherwise expect to see a conjunction or conjunctive punctuation (for example a semi-colon, colon or dash), or two separate sentences. For example:

• She went into the basement. The lights weren’t working. = separate sentences
• She went into the basement but the lights weren’t working. = conjunction
• She went into the basement; the lights weren’t working. = conjunctive punctuation
• She went into the basement, the lights weren’t working. = comma splice

To break this down a little more, and help identify such splices, remember that an independent clause occurs whenever we have a new verb and subject, without any connectors that link it dependently to another clause (e.g. subordinating conjunctions like when, as, or relative pronouns like who, which).

In the example above, the verbs “went” and “weren’t” indicate distinct clauses, made clearer because we have separate subjects “she” and “the lights”. However, even if the verbs share a subject, which does not necessarily need to be repeated, a new active verb can still form a separate independent clause that needs connecting:

• She went into the basement and tried to turn on the light. = conjunction
• She went into the basement – tried to turn on the lights. = conjunctive punctuation
• She went into the basement, tried to turn on the lights. = comma splice

The second example here, with the dash, creates a sentence fragment, which can be more acceptably linked by a dash than a comma (though depending on the context even the dash might not be welcome; as always, the more formal a text, the more likely it would be to stick to expected rules and conventions).

Why do Comma Splices Matter?

In the examples above, the comma splices are technically incorrect. You might read them and think they make sense, though, so why does it matter? When compared to sentences that use semi-colons to bridge clauses, it might look like there’s little difference, after all.

Well, the simplest explanation is that commas are not intended to be used in this way and it’s therefore likely to cause confusion with readers. It can actively affect the way a sentence is read. How problematic this is depends on the sentence; the examples above aren’t confusing, but longer sentences or ones with different subjects could be. It can also make it more difficult to read as we won’t pause in the right places, creating a clumsy flow where information isn’t clearly separated:

• She went into the basement, the lights weren’t working, it was very dark.

By using a comma, we’d also miss the opportunity to demonstrate how separate ideas are connected. Without more context, for example, we could easily express different scenarios depending on the chosen connector:

• She went into the basement where the lights weren’t working.
• She went into the basement because the lights weren’t working.

But if you read enough in English, particularly in fiction, you’re almost guaranteed to come across some comma splices eventually. It’s an easy mistake to make, and an easy one to miss. It’s also sometimes done deliberately. This is most often the case where a writer wants to add information running directly on without distinct connectors. It’s less formal than using a semi-colon and more subtle than using a dash, both of which would be the more accepted styles. It can create a slightly different feel when we have a shared subject with a follow-on action that adds a response or feeling. Compare:

• She muttered under her breath; hated the dark.
• She muttered under her breath – hated the dark.
• She muttered under her breath, hated the dark.

In this example, it’s actually working similarly to an adverbial, but it gives it a particular twist: “hating the dark” would be the expected, grammatically correct form, but “hated the dark” sets the verb differently, as a rule, or a complete, emphatic action.

That said, it’s a technique that few writers can get away with. I read an Elmore Leonard book (Maximum Bob I believe) which was full of comma splices, for example, but Elmore Leonard was an exceptional writer with a very specific style (in this case often reflecting a character of a certain low class’s mode of language). It’s very much a case of only bending the rules when you have mastered them, and even then only if you can confidently justify why you’re doing it – and note that it is only justifiable in very specific circumstances, which will often fall into the realm of deliberate mistakes anyway.

How to Avoid Comma Splices

Once you’ve got the hang of identifying independent clauses, to avoid comma splices ask yourself if your clauses are appropriately connected. If you find they’re not, this is fairly simple to fix. Let’s go back to our original example:

• She went into the basement, the lights weren’t working.

Most simply, we could separate the clauses into separate sentences:

• She went into the basement. The lights weren’t working.

To demonstrate a particular relationship between clauses, or generate a particular flow, you could replace the comma with an appropriate conjunction:

• She went into the basement but the lights weren’t working.

To connect the clauses closely, speeding the text up and demonstrating a relationship without spelling it out, you could use a semi-colon:

• She went into the basement; the lights weren’t working.

This could also be done with a dash, though the choice here is a matter of style and (as with the splices themselves) dashes might not be universally accepted. Also note that conjunctive punctuation like this might bridge the clauses correctly, but it doesn’t necessarily make much sense as a choice if there isn’t a clear reason that they’re closely connected. In this example, for example, it would work better if we had an indicator of why the clauses are connected, such as an adverb:

• She went into the basement slowly; the lights weren’t working. (the second clause accounts for how she went, slowly)

I hope this helps as a bit of a crash course in comma splices; there’s certainly more nuance that we could go into them and the examples you find in the wild can lead to lots of questions. There’s also controversy connected to this. Purists will say comma splices are unacceptable at any time (and if you want to be safe that’s a reasonable view to follow), whilst others may use them consistently, and clearly, without even knowing how or why. It’s one of those areas of English that can cause arguments, but as with all these things, the trick is to understand how and why it happens, and from there you can decide for yourself how and why it matters.